Scotia Capital is celebrating a big win after the Canadian bank drummed up Repsol's sale of a 40 per cent stake to Sinopec for more than $7-billion.
Scotia Capital was not only the sole adviser on the deal, but its enterprising bankers initiated the transaction between the Spanish oil and gas firm and China's Sinopec, one of the largest companies in the world.
Leading the deal were Scotia managing directors Drew Hickey and Randy Crath. "We have done a number of transactions with Sinopec, advising them on deals, and we actually approached them with the idea - which they enthusiastically embraced - and then went with them arm-in-arm to Repsol," said Adam Waterous, head of global investment banking at Scotia Capital. "We also have known Repsol for a long time."
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The talks progressed over the last several weeks, and began after it became publicly known that Repsol was planning an IPO of its Brazillian subsidiary to be able to finance continuing capital expenditures.
"Sinopec thought it was a wonderful opportunity to, rather than have Repsol have a broad range of public shareholders, to effectively only have one partner as their 40 per cent minority partner," Mr. Waterous said.
Scotia Capital is the investment banking and securities arm of Bank of Nova Scotia.